“All this i copied from the chronicler…”: The tale of the miracles of the Novgorod icon of the Sign of the Mother of God in a manuscript from the collection of the Novgorod Museum

Abstract

The article presents the full publication of a manuscript text dedicated to recounting the miracles of the Novgorod icon of the Sign of the Mother of God. The manuscript is dated 1761, but it refers to an earlier source – most likely from the second half of the 17^th century – specifically a chronicle ("letopisets") of the Novgorod Church of the Sign, as evidenced by the latest dated miracle in the text (1666). The tale found in the manuscript begins with a rhetorical introduction that praises the Mother of God, emphasizes the special role of Novgorod, and condemns the internecine strife among Russian princes. The description of the siege of Novgorod includes stable narrative formulas typical of military tales, which lends the story the qualities of a true literary work. Nine miracles of the icon of the Sign of the Mother of God are presented as a separate “narrative,” recounting the miraculous preservation of the icon itself (from fires and desecration by non-believers), the healing of the sick, the deliverance of Novgorod from plague and fire, and the restoration of the image in 1664. The manuscript was donated in 1859 by an unnamed private individual to the well-known researcher of Novgorod antiquities, priest P. I. Tikhomirov. Although it was immediately introduced into academic circulation, the text itself was never published. At the same time, the manuscript – being a monograph-type compilation – is a valuable source for reconstructing the later history of the miracle cycle of the Novgorod icon of the Sign, as well as for understanding the developments in regional historical writing in the late Middle Ages and early Modern period.